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Unusually, this month's reading has included some rereads.  My niece happened to be reading Lloyd Alexander's marvelous Prydain series, so I indulged myself and read it along with her.  I'd loved these books as a child, and was a little worried that they might have lost their magic, but they still sparkled!  Another reread was Cawthorne & Moorcock's Fantasy:  The 100 Best Books, prompted by the recent discussion of some lists in progress.  Rereading it has really fired me up to get to some of those books!

First time June reads include:

Ad Eternum (2012), the fourth (and final?) installment in Elizabeth Bear's elegant New Amsterdam vampire series.  Very "manners-punky", this one was a satisfying novella of meditation and emotions, this time with our ancient wampyr protagonist traveling to 1960s New York city.  The entire series is highly recommended.

The Black Opera (2012) by Mary Gentle was a tantalizing fizzle.  Really a shame, as all the ingredients were there for this one to be a real barn-burner: great characters, a great love triangle, a great setting (19th century Naples), a fascinating premise (that inspiring choral works, both sacred and secular can occasion miracles),  and an Illuminati-type plot to summon a god/demon? by sacrificing millions by way of miraculously caused volcanoes.  The real problem was one of pacing - probably a third of the book should have been cut.  The culminating spectacle of dueling opera companies literally singing themselves to death in order to invoke/prevent a catastrophe should have had you on the edge of your seat, however, it was all sabotaged by glacial pacing.  Still a worthwhile read, but it could have been so much more.  I can see that in this book Mary Gentle has tried to rein in her baroque imagination in favor of a tighter plot, but she hasn't quite gotten the hang of it yet.  I expect great things from her next time!

The Twilight of the Gods (1888) by Richard Garnett was a selection from the Cawthorne & Moorcock list.  Thanks to a truly excellent library system, I was able to get the edition recommended by C&M: the 1924 British edition with 28 stories (the original edition only had 16), 28 art plates, and an introduction by Lawrence of Arabia.  It's a terrific collection!  His stories are full of the urbane, elegant  humor that you later see used by James Branch Cabell and Ernest Bramah (and, to a lesser extent, by Lord Dunsany, Saki, and even Thorne Smith).  Try the short story Abdallah the Adite for a taste.  Oh, and bring your OED - I learned a bunch of new words - impignorate, vilipend, lanista, silentiary, protospatharios, and more...

End of the World Blues (2006) by Jon Courtenay Grimwood.  I really liked this one, more so than his Arabesk trilogy.  Perhaps it was the Tokyo milieu bringing back fond memories, but this one was a lot of fun.  As convoluted as the nautilus shell on the book's cover, it was a twisty intersection between various Yakuza/Irish gangsters and a curious refugee/tourist? cosplayer/time traveler from a bizarre future, one in which a dying earth barely supports the guttering embers of humanity.  A worthy BSFA winner.

After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall (2012) by Nancy Kress was a nice  little book, filled with, as always, her wonderful characters, but it unexpectedly ran off the rails with a jarring ending.  It reminded me quite a bit of John Varley's excellent Millennium, using a similar plot in which genetically scarred people from the future reach back through time to snatch healthy people from our own time in a desperate attempt to save humanity.  Worth reading, but Millennium is easily the better book.

The Ecstasy of Influence (2011) by Jonathan Lethem is an assemblage of various essays and ephemera.  It's divided into sections such as II:Dick, Calvino, Ballard: SF and Postmodernism, III Plagiarisms, IV: Film and Comics, etc. Perforce, it's a bit of a mixed bag, but it gives interesting insights into the nature of the creative process, as well as thoughts on some of Letham's favorite cultural icons.  It's inspired me to start reading more Calvino, as well as wishing desperately that I could speedily fit 2666, Roberto Bolano' 900+ page opus into my reading schedule.

Railsea (2012), a YA by China Mieville was... another frustrating and unengaging effort.  The reasons for my somewhat negative reaction to Mieville is starting to crystallize in my mind.  One thing that's always bothered me about Mieville is that he never has any characters that are at all believable or that you give a damn about.  But that's not really the problem - I love lots of books where characterization isn't important.  My main problem with Mieville is that he loves to dream up impossible, absurd premises, and then demands the reader to blithely follow along.  This shouldn't ordinarily be a problem - every genre reader worth their salt should be able to match Lewis Carroll's Red Queen and believe six impossible things before breakfast.  But Mieville seems to want us to believe all this while simultaneously rubbing our noses in the sheer impossibility of it all.  The landscape of Railsea is a near-endless tangle of railways, beneath which lurk giant malefic moles, etc.  In fact, there's some sort of pseudo-postmodern Moby Dick thing going on with the train captain and a giant mole.  But, as one character observes, it's impossible!  This is a recurring theme with Mieville - see my crazy, unbelievable concept?  It's so very, very-very unbelievable that even my characters don't believe it.  But, foolish readers, you have to!!  I'm not sure what Mieville is trying to accomplish with Railsea - post-postmodernernism in a YA?  There's a lot of racing around prior to (SPOILER) an ending in which it turns out that much of the railsea landscape, as well as the MacGuffin quest object, is all an artifact of mutant capitalism.

2312 (2012) by Kim Stanley Robinson.  Totally loved it, as I explained in my review.

Silver Screen (1999) by Justina Robson is a very strong first effort.  At first it feels like it might be an Ender's Game ultra-smart kid school knockoff, but that's only for the first chapter.  Most of the book is concerned with emergent AIs and just how this might play out for the company that engendered them.  It's all very gripping, except for a meandering but surprising ending.  I'm very much looking forward to reading more Robson.

Flora's Fury:  How a Girl of Spirit and a Red Dog Confound Their Friends, Astound Their Enemies, and Learn the Importance of Packing Light (2012)  by Ysabeau S. Wilce is the third installment in the Flora Segunda YA series.  Breathless, non-stop action, sporadically fun, but missing much of the charm and kooky humor that marked the first book in the series.